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11/11/14

Fariha Róisín

Montreal-based publishing entity Metatron is guest editing Everyday Genius this month. We'll be featuring excerpts from our new fall catalog as well as Canadian writers we like. Today's author is feminist hero Fariha Róisín.

Mansplain Nation

whenever i see you

you explain things to me

“is that how you

really feel?”

you ask, taunting,

taunting, taunting

as if you have

the right answer,

hidden

beneath all those

other secrets.

what you know

or don’t know

are the same thing,

pursed lips,

goofy mechanical eyes,

you somehow devastatingly

question

others sincerity, but never

your own.

why is that?

“you once told me

that

you’re not a feminist,

you know?”

using it as a weapon, like

“how would you know

how to be a woman?

you’re not even

a feminist.”

Lana Del Rey,

decontextualizing

what i said,

only to inflate

your own cock

momentarily;

ephemeral pleasure.

do you know

how many times

i’ve heard a man

declare he’s a feminist?

only to side eye

me and my intelligence

with a glaring swipe.

like the finger on tinder

your insolence,

begrudgingly spoilt

by society’s

insistence

to exhonerate men.

white male privilege

characterizes you,

that perennial smirk.

let me break it to you:

your theoretical understanding

of “class divide,”

reading baudrillard; habermas; graeber

(white man/white man/white man)

doesn’t make you

any less

of a piece of shit.

waiting,

waiting, waiting

to be acknowledged

by you,

as if you held

my self esteem

in an infirmary

privatized

by your hubris.

men only win

because their lies

seep out seamless; the

burning empty cavity

of their plundered souls,

linger

without exhaustion.

they’ve gotten used

to the calcified taste

of a personality

of their own

design;

who cares,

if they’re betraying

themselves?

anything to not be labelled

the dirty word: romantic,

ugh,

romantic.

mansplain that to me again,

oh it’s so sexy

when you

re-explain things

to me that

i already know, or i daresay

just told you,

e x a c t l y,

like that, just

seconds ago.

remember how

when i said k

was

looking at my tits, once

and that it made me feel

uncomfortable?

and you said: “well

they are hanging out,

what else is he

supposed to do?”

we were crossing

a street,

the green light was

delayed,

and my heart

pounded

to that sound

of internal mourning.

at the sight of my sadness, you

exasperatedly said:

“ugh i’m just joking!”

it was such

a funny joke.

Fariha Róisín has written for IndieWIRE, Filmmaker Magazine, QuipMag and the Film Society of Lincoln Centre. She mainly writes film and culture criticism and has a podcast called "Two Brown Girls" where she discusses sexism, race and their respective implications on popular culture. She tweets at @fariharoisin.